Guy Butavia - Youtube - In fact, the "Anarchists Against Walls" group is
not very involved in strubbles at the South Hebron Hills, the activists
shown here were from Ta`ayush. However, the police and army use
"Anarchists" as a generic term for Israeli activists who try to help
Palestinians under occupation. ak

Aron Heller - Associated Press/ABC News - One of the actresses, Sarit Vino-Elad, said she could not bring herself to step foot in a theater built on occupied land and which posed an obstacle to peace with Palestinians.
"This is not a boycott. It`s my own little protest against a government policy that continues to build settlements," she told The Associated Press. "They are trying to make Ariel part of the consensus, but as far as I am concerned it is not legitimate. You want me to perform there? Solve the problem."
Israel is particularly sensitive to such sentiments as it is constantly battling against international efforts to impose economic, cultural and academic boycotts upon it over the settlements.
bz

Ma`an News Agency - "Murad Eshtawi, who leads a weekly protest march in the village of Kafr Qaddum against Israeli settlement expansion and the separation wall, was arrested early Friday after Israeli soldiers warned him to stop the protests"

Scott McConnell - The American Conservativ - The American Studies Association landslide vote in favor of boycotting Israeli institutions is a milestone, a landmark event. As one commenter put it, succinctly, “history is being made before our eyes.” The vote put the BDS movement, growing in Europe and heretofore well known only to Americans who follow Israel and Palestine closely, on the American political map.-rh

Justin Raimondo -
antiwar.com -
"The idea that state funds are being used to build "Jews only" housing, roads, and entire communities – and that this is accepted as normal, even beneficial, by Israel’s ostensible "liberals" – is an international outrage. " - id

Adalah-NY - As snow fell on the New York area Saturday afternoon, 40
human rights advocates gathered on Manhattan’s upscale Madison Avenue in
front of the Leviev Diamond store and sang parody holiday carols
protesting diamond magnate Lev Leviev’s construction of Israeli
settlements. Many holiday shoppers, bundled against the cold, paused to
listen to the carolers and appeared surprised but pleased by their human
rights message. ak

New Profile/Group Against Compulsory Service - Druze refuser Seif Abu
Seif, imprisoned for his refusal to join the Israeli Army, was ordered
to cut his hair, as required by military regulations. However, observant
Jewish prisoners get exempted from that on religions grounds, and Abu
Seif demands his adherence to the Druze religion be equally respected.
In retaliation, he was sent to isolation and would get no family visits
until he gets his hair cut. His conditions are harsh. In the coldest
December to hit the country in more than a century, the windows of the
cell are permanently open and he is not allowed to close them, wind and
rain come through, soaking his bed and laving the concrete floor covered
with water, and during the day (5:00 am until 11:00 pm) the blankets he
sleeps with are taken away, with no source of heating left in the cell.
ak

Adri Nieuwhof - The Electronic Intifada - Abvakabo, a Dutch trade union
with 350,000 members, has ended its relationship with G4S, a private
security firm that had providing security to the union office in
Utrecht, since the same company also equipped Israelï¿½s West Bank
prisons. Earlier, the Dutch Green Left party (GroenLinks) also dispensed
with G4S security at its national office, and two Dutch charities ruled
out donations from G4S. G4S still delivers services to Dutch local
governments, police, fire brigades and courts. Dutch activists call for
all such contracts to be severed, in line with the Dutch government`s
proclaimed obligation to hold Israel accountable for International Law
violations. ak

ASA website - By a 66% majority, the membership of the American Studies
Association (ASA) voted to endorse the boycott resolution proposed by
its National Council. The resolution calls for a ban on collaboration
with Israeli institutions - since these institutions are deemed to be
taking part in the oppression of Palestinians in general and Palestinian
academics in particular. Individual Israeli scholars would still be able
to attend conferences, lecture and research at American universities,
"if they do not officially represent the Israeli universities or
government." The wave of academic boycott initiatives, originating in
the UK, has clearly reached America.ak

Ma`an News Agency - “Ashrawi said Vitens` decision was ‘necessary and moral’ and a significant step. ‘I also commend the Dutch government for its clear official policy on discouraging economic links with the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise, which is in line with domestic, European and international law.’ The PLO official also welcomed recent guidelines published by the United Kingdom`s Department of Trade and Industry which warned businesses about the risks of economic links to Israeli settlements”

Chris Carlson -
IMEMC
"The news comes less than two weeks following worldwide protests held in resistance to the plan, during which police and soldiers clashed repeatedly with demonstrators in Israel, culminating in dozens of injuries and arrests across Israel and the West Bank." ca

Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies - Four months ago, a group of young Palestinians started sleeping in the village, as part of an extended campaign to affirm their right in their own lands, and recently installed a Christmas tree in the yard of a local church, affirming their Right of Return following 65 years of displacement-rh

New Profile Team - In his refusal decleration Seif wrote: "How can I take part in jailing and killing my brothers? how can I identify with the state that confiscated our lands? how can I as a Druze Arab Palestinian stand against those who share with me life, tradition and fate? I cannot imagine that for a second."-rh

Haggai Matar - +972 - Twelve activists arrested at Negev ‘day of rage’ protest are still in jail after more than a week; police are asking they be detained until the end of legal proceedings; activists fear the heavy handedness is an attempt to smother resistance to Prawer. Solidarity demonstration is held in Tel Aviv

Sydney Levy -
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)
"The resolution recommended for passage by the ASA leadership would not target Jews, Jewish studies or individual Israeli academics. Academic boycott is about the institutional academic connections that support Israeli policies of occupation and oppression of Palestinians.A groundbreaking boycott resolution, endorsed by the ASA leadership, is now open to a referendum through December 15." ca

Sydney Levy -
Muzzlewatch -
"Our friends at the Open Hillel campaign have won a landmark victory in their efforts to transform campus Hillel chapter into spaces that welcome all Jews, instead of marginalizing those who oppose Israel’s discriminatory policies." - id

Mariam Nabil & Jesse Gonzalez -
PNN -
"...decorated one of the trees in Manger Square with teargas grenades and rubber-coated bullets, all of which were made in the United States provided to the Israeli occupation to be used against Palestinians in their resistance. They also hung papers to explain what the tree symbolizes." - id

New Profile - Tommorow (Wed., Dec. 4) at 8.00 am, the 18-year old Omar
Sa`ad, from Al Mughar village, will show up at the Tiberias
recruitment center and will declare his refusal to join the IDF. He
expects to be sent to military prison. Activists of New Profile,
who will set out by bus from Tel Aviv at an early morning hour, will
hold a solidarity vigil outside. A further proptest will be held on
Thur. Dec. 5, at 6.00 PM outside the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv.
Sa`ad wrote: "I oppose the law of conscription imposed on my Druze
community. I refuse because I am a man of peace and I hate all forms of
violence, and the military institution represents for me the peak of
physical and psychological violence. I play the viola, I have musician
friends from Ramallah, Jericho, Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablus, Jenin,
Shfa’amr, Eilabun, Rome, Athens, Amman, Beirut, Damascus, Oslo, and we
all play for freedom, humanity and peace. Our weapon is the music and we
shall not have any other weapon." ak

Australians for BDS - The Israeli extreme right law centre "Shurat
HaDin" made threats of litigation against two Australian professors for
their support of the Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS)
campaign. "Australians for BDS" was formed to counter that threat to
Academic Freedom and to strongly reiterate that calling for a boycott of
Israel is NOT a "racist" or "antisemitic" act. This struggle might have
wider implications beyond the specific Australian case. ak

+972 - In protest of the Prawer-Begin Plan, which if implemented, will result in the forced displacement of tens of thousands of Bedouin in the Negev desert, Bedouin and other activists organized a ‘day of rage.’ On Saturday November 30, demonstrations took place in the southern town of Hura, in Haifa, East Jerusalem, Ramallah and Jaffa. The following is the story of those protests, in photos.
Photos: Yotam Ronen, Oren Ziv, Ryan Rodrick Beiler, Keren Manor, Mareike Lauken, Tali Mayer, Shiraz Grinbaum / Activestills.org

International Solidarity Movement - Nablus Team - Friday morning, two hours before the demonstration was due to begin, Mr Eshtewi was walking on the outskirts of the village and was ambushed and arrested by soldiers. He did not resist this arrest and yet Israeli forces were extremely aggressive in their use of both pepper spray and stun grenades. He has not yet been released.
His attorney, Lymor Goldstein, stated that, “Contrary to the fundamental principles of due process we have not been presented with the accusations against Murad nor has he been interrogated since his arrest. “-rh

Michael Omer-Man -
+972 -
"He was re-sentenced by a military tribunal using secret evidence that neither he nor his lawyers were allowed to see, and therefore was unable to mount any defense in court." - id

Rosa Schiano -
International Solidarity Movement -
""For Christmas and the New Year, Palestinian fishermen ask their friends and brothers in the rest of the world to convince the Israeli occupation to end the illegal blockade in Gaza, and to free the Holy Land sea, to grant them their rights.”" - id

Alex Shams -
Ma`an News Agency
"Zochrot is an Israeli organization that has been working for years to keep alive the memory of the 1948 ethnic cleansing within Israel, and the film festival was the first in Israel that explicitly focused on the topic. Over the last two days, Israeli audiences packed the Tel Aviv Cinemateque and Jaffa Theater to watch films that approached the issue of the 1948 Nakba (Arabic for "catastrophe") from a wide variety of perspectives." ca